Dear Editors and Translators:

Technology shapes our lives. It has symbolic fall-out in our self-image. A man by the name of Jaque Ellul wrote a book many years ago called " La Technique. " He examined very carefully the role of technology and how it shapes our lives without us really even being aware of it; how it had a certain kind of automaticity. How it simply ran itself and marginalized human beings.

Well, technology can't be invoked like a talisman. Today it is everywhere. It is part of everything. How the creative individual uses it is everything aswell. We are emeshed and embedded in a technological world and it is changing somewhat rapidly now. Technology isn't like some new toy. It's a whole set of activities, relationships, and tools in which we are all imbedded. It's like the air we breathe. It also has a powerful symbolic effect, wherein our ideas about ourselves and our world are shaped by the technology in which we find ourselves. It's not what technology does; it's what technology says to us that makes it very important.

Today digital technology is allowing the creative individual to do things that were impossible five years ago. We would not be talking to each other right now without the internet. This translation project would not exist. Neither would Harvest of Gems at Amazon.com. Nor would we be able to submit samples of your great translations to publishers on the net quickly. Russian triangulation would be impossible too. I challenge you all to be creative individuals in this new digital enviornment.

Michael